Goldcorp, the largest gold miner in Ontario’s Northeast and a major world gold producing company, held a private meeting Thursday with the chiefs and band councils of the Chapleau Cree and Brunswick House First Nations to explain its applications to the Ontario and federal governments for permits to proceed to advance exploration stage.

Details of the meeting still have not emerged despite repeated calls by TimminsToday to Goldcorp Media Relations section in Vancouver and to the Band Offices of Chapleau Cree and Brunswick House First Nations.

Prior to the meeting, Donna Byce, manager of Corporate and Social Responsibility for Goldcorp’s Borden Lake Project, indicated it would be inappropriate to discuss the project prior to Goldcorp’s meeting with the chiefs and band councils.

“We are not prepared to discuss this at this moment,” Byce told us on Thursday. However, the importance of the project to Chapleau Cree First Nations is abundantly clear by the multiple references to the Borden Lake Project in the band’s Five Year Economic Development Plan.

The Chapleau Cree Economic Development Plan looks to the Borden Lake project to help solve some pressing issues facing the band:

“The nation does not experience consistent population growth and has an aging demographic. This is due to the lack of infrastructure and available housing loan system for new construction on-reserve, limited availability of suitable and affordable living within the Town of Chapleau, and an equally limited growth of economy and new job development.”